New builds are ready for members of the Windows Insider Program's Fast ring: Preview Build 16184 for PC and Preview Build 15208 for mobile.
Preview Build 16184 features two main updates: My People, a taskbar app that's supposed to make it easier to communicate with the people in your life, and the expansion of some Windows 10 Mail and Calendar features to Gmail users. The former is all about introducing new features to Microsoft's communications tools, whereas the latter makes other features available to people who don't use Outlook and Office 365 to handle all of their email.
Here's what Microsoft said in its blog post about My People:
Technology is all about making it easier for you to connect with your most important people. Whether you want to share a photo, make plans for dinner, or get an answer from a friend or coworker – My People is here to take it to the next level and bring the people you care about most to the center of your experience.
My People is supposed to achieve that lofty goal by letting you pin up to three people in your taskbar, allowing you to view multiple communications services right next to each other, and remembering your app of choice for the next time you want to chat with that person. Enabling the feature requires you to install Preview Build 16184; make sure you have the latest versions of Skype, Mail, and People; and click the People icon in the taskbar.
This build also kicks off the expansion of some Mail and Calendar features to Gmail users. Microsoft said earlier this month that the apps will now let non-Outlook and Office 365 users to do things "such as easily tracking travel and shipping deliveries, making emails more actionable, helping you easily track your favorite sports events, faster search, and more." Windows Insiders will, naturally, be the first to use the expanded features.
Preview Build 16184 also brought some improvements to the Start menu, squashed a few bugs, and "fixed an issue resulting in Counter Strike Global Offensive hanging or freezing during game play." You can find a full list of bug fixes and known issues in Microsoft's blog post about the build.
The company also released Preview Build 15208 for mobile. It fixed two issues--one pertaining to the Bluetooth Settings page and the other creating a 20-second delay if you try to shut down a phone after switching from one network to another--and has its own batch of known problems. The most important of those bugs is a "small percentage of devices" that "may experience text message backup loss" and "random shutdowns on some devices."
These updates seem downright bursting with new features (moreso on PC than mobile) when compared to their predecessors. That's because most of the recent preview builds have focused on improving Windows 10's core instead of adding new features so close to the Creators Update's debut. Or, you know, revealing that the Creators Update for mobile devices would be restricted to just a handful of smartphones.
